Were you affected by the recent floods in Colorado? Even undocumented persons are eligible for federal and local assistance.

If your home and belongings were damaged or destroyed, you are eligible for assistance from the federal government through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Although people without immigration status do not qualify for cash assistance from FEMA, they can receive benefits in many other forms. FEMA is encouraging all flood victims, regardless of status, to register for assistance. If one member of the household is a citizen or a lawful permanent resident (LPR), the entire household may qualify for assistance from FEMA, since only one member of the household must be eligible for assistance. An attorney can assist you in determining if you qualify for FEMA assistance. To apply for more information on FEMA’s program, go to: http://www.disasterassistance.gov/.

Other benefits available to undocumented persons include crisis counseling, disaster legal services, transportation, emergency medical care, food, water and other emergency supplies. Many large charities, including the Red Cross and the Salvation Army will also assist any victim of the floods without revealing their immigration status. You can receive medical assistance, food and supplies from these and other organizations.

If you are an immigrant and flood victim in need of legal services, free legal assistance is available through Colorado Flood Legal Relief. Aretz & Chisholm Immigration has offered their legal services through this non-profit effort. For assistance, you may contact the hotline at (855) 424-5347 or request help online:: http://colofloodlegalrelief.org/contact/.

One of the problems with debates on serious issues being played out in the media is that all sides, by necessity, make their arguments with shorthand and sound bites. The same is true, in spades, of the public discussion on Arizona’s SB1070 immigration law.

Much of the debate centers around the law’s requirement that law enforcement personnel demand immigration documents when they have “reasonable suspicion” that someone they have stopped might be undocumented. Proponents of the law often give the example of an Arizona driver who has been stopped for speeding and is unable to produce a valid driver’s license as an example of reasonable suspicion.

While that example makes for a nice sound bite, the reality is a little more complicated. If Arizona had meant to limit the circumstances to that, they readily could have written a law that said that if a person required to produce an Arizona driver’s license cannot do so, check for his proof of legal status. That would have been ethnically neutral, and would have avoided getting into the vague territory of “reasonable suspicion.” But they didn’t do that. Instead, they went much further.

The Arizona law requires law enforcement officers (including non-police civil servants enforcing municipal civil codes) to demand documents where “reasonable suspicion” exists that a person might be undocumented. Thus, if a county official goes to a home to cite the resident for the grass being too tall, or having too many people living in the house, or having a car on blocks in the yard, this obligation kicks in. Since there is no reason in these kinds of instances to look at a drivers license, what would create “reasonable suspicion” in this form of “stop”?

The legal definition of “reasonable suspicion” arises from a 1968 Supreme Court case called Terry v. Ohio. The court there said that, under the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, an officer may “stop and frisk” a person if the officer observes “articulable facts” that make it “reasonable to assume” that the person is violating the law. Well, here, the “frisk” would be the demand for the documents. But what articulable facts could arise that would make it reasonable to assume that someone is in violation of immigration laws? THAT is the sticking point. In the vast majority of circumstances covered by this law, the ONLY articulable facts would be ethnically based–color of skin, accent, language. And THAT then triggers an issue under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states “no state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.

Modern law interpreting the Equal Protection Clause derives from the famous school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. That case, and those that have followed it, have established that this Clause operates as a general restraint on the government’s power to discriminate against people based on their membership in certain classes, including those based on race and ethnicity. Because in the vast majority of the circumstances in which the Arizona law requires officers and officials to demand documents, the only possible articulable fact that would lead to the demand is ethnically based, the law conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment.

It also is just plain against American values to engage in this kind of ethnic profiling.

There are those who argue that police develop “instincts” and “can identify patterns” that lead them to a reasonable suspicion based on their experience. Even assuming that that is true, and is not in fact based on subliminal prejudices, it would not be true here. The enforcement of this law is being assigned to state and local police and to civil servants, rather than to immigration officers. None of them have the experience to know what those patterns would be. Again, that leaves them with only ethnicity to serve as a guide. And, since the majority of ethnic minorities, including Latinos, in Arizona are in fact U.S. citizens or legal residents, ethnicity would not be a reliable basis even if such profiling were not morally repugnant.

Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) is currently available to nationals of the following designated countries: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Syria. TPS has been extended for Syria and El Salvador, and the re-registration periods are closing soon. Re-registration for El Salvador ends July 29, 2013, and TPS protection has been extended through March 9, 2015. Re-registration for Syria ends August 16, 2013, and TPS protection has been extended through March 31, 2015. Please keep in mind that continuous presence dates have changed, and the last day for initial registration for Syrian TPS is December 16, 2013. Applications must be post-marked by that date. For more information, visit http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/, and select “Temporary Protected Status” in the “Humanitarian” category.

Don’t become a victim of dishonest immigration consultants known as “notarios”. Learn how to protect yourself and those around you with advice from these immigration attorneys. Project Coordinator: Michelle Singleton, Producer: Jessica Eise, Cameraman: Loren Crippin.